Murrieta Library program shows teens how to make unique art from duct tape

Twenty teens got into a sticky situation when they participated in a duct tape art program at the Murrieta Library on June 26.

“It’s sticky, sticky, sticky,” Teen Services Librarian Joyce Lea Brown said as she helped some of the teens make wallets from the all-purpose tape.

The afternoon program was held in the library’s Community Room and attracted mostly girls though four boys attended to make wallets.

Adult Services Librarian Laura Davis and six Murrieta Young Adult Advisory Council (MYAAC) members also helped the teens turn rolls of colorful and patterned tape into bows, roses and other creations.

MYAAC member Gina Arce, 17, sat at a table with three 12-year-old girls and showed them how to make roses on the ends of pencils or on a piece of wire. Arce had the girls cut about 2-inch squares of tape and demonstrated how to fold and attach it to the pencil or wire. The girls overlapped the squares to make petals and kept adding squares until they felt their rose was done.

“That’s awesome,” Arce said to Becca Rutledge who was sitting beside her making a blue and white rose.

Rutledge tried to cut more squares, but had difficulty with her scissors. “You guys having the same problem?” she asked the other girls at her table. She discovered her scissors were too dull to cut the thick sticky tape so she got another pair that worked better.

Elissa Munoz, 13, was making a small dragon from different colored tapes instead of bows like the girls sitting next to her. She did tape art before when she was in fifth grade so she had already made bows and wanted to do something more creative.

MYAAC member Alison Lafferty, 19, liked Munoz’s dragon. “I love the front legs. Those are so cool,” she commented.

Lafferty was instructing the teens how to make bows, which she said aren’t difficult to do. She was wearing two bows that she’d made in her hair.

“I’m staying away from the wallets,” Lafferty said laughing.

Rebecca Lam, 18, another MYAAC member, wasn’t afraid of tackling a wallet and made her fourth one during the program.

“This is the best wallet I’ve made so far,” Lam said. She was holding a beige and pink er wallet that had a place for an identification card with a plastic protective window. Lam plans on giving her other three wallets away to people as gifts. She’s made tape flowers that she’s given to her mother.

Ella Rustin, 11, came to the program with her own tape to make a wallet. She’s made flowers, purses and even a skirt from tape. She said it took her two days to make the skirt. She hasn’t worn it yet, but she might this coming Halloween.

“It’s fun to make stuff out of it,” Rustin said. She was using bright blue and metallic star patterned tapes for her wallet.

Dania Barajas, 15, loves to wear cute bows to school so she made a red and white polka dot bow and put it on a choker. She used Velcro as a fastener for the choker and proudly showed it off to the other teens who all liked it.

Brown thought the program would take an hour, but it lasted over 90 minutes because the teens were having so much fun. Some parents came to get them and decided to let them stay a bit longer to finish their projects.

Toward the end of the program there was a drawing for prizes. As their name was called, each of the teens got to come up to the front and select a gift certificate donated by local businesses for free burgers, pizza, ice cream and other treats.

For more information on the library’s summer teen programs, call the library at (951) 304-2665 or visit www.murrieta.org.

The Murrieta Library held a Duct Tape Art Program for teens on June 26 and it attracted 20 participants.

Laura Rathbun is a Southern California native with a B.A. Degree in English from San Diego State University. She has worked as a freelance journalist for over 30 years for newspapers in San Diego and Riverside counties. She specializes in writing feature articles.